


My Pledge

by emmasnowrilla



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Curse, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-30 19:02:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3948142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmasnowrilla/pseuds/emmasnowrilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU.  Regina is the new member educator in one of the top sororities at a small private school.  She has kept her sexuality a secret for fear of judgment and retribution from close-minded Greeks, but that may all fly out the window with her newest class of pledges that includes a certain Emma Swan.  To all you non-Greeks out there, don’t worry!  The first few chapters are sorority-talk heavy just to set the scene.  It quickly becomes all about the development of Emma and Regina’s friendship after “recruitment” is over, eventual SQ.  You’ll be able to enjoy it all the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Pledge

**Author's Note:**

> I like to stay three chapters ahead of what I've posted; new chapters will go up at least once per week (shooting for two). Hope you enjoy!
> 
> **Zeta Kappa Omicron was intended as a purely fictional sorority. My apologies to any sororities with local chapters of that name.

“Zee! Kay!  Oh! The only place to go! Gold and white with an owl and kite!”

            The front door slammed shut. Girls with plastered smiles paused for one, two seconds, peering out the door’s window while the most recent group of potential new members walked back to the sidewalk by the street. Once the group began their walk to the next house, the girls inside visibly relaxed and rushed back to the couches expertly arranged around the front room to maximize seating and flow. Each one sat in silence as one of their sorority advisors passed out pencil and paper to take notes on the conversations they just had.

            Regina Mills, however, stood from her seat and walked purposefully toward the kitchen through a door hidden behind a grand piano.  She drank from her bottled water, popped in a breath mint, and sighed _. Three down, four to go tonight. Then voting and finally bed… I can do this._ She heard the two-minute warning and the advisor picking up everyone’s notes on the girls from the recruitment party that just ended.  Glancing in the mirror, she reapplied her lipstick with a pop.  She smoothed her green dress and practiced her smile. With a sigh, she walked to stand in line by the door with her sisters.  At a signal from outside, the door swung open and the sorority welcomed the next group of twenty-five potential new members into their home with perky clapping and their Day 1 chant:

            “Zee! Kay!  Oh!  The only place to go! Gold and white with an owl and kite!”

The chant repeated as one-by-one a sorority member picked up her assigned potential new member, referred to as a PNM, at the door and escorted them to their seat.  The PNMs were mostly freshman with a few other classes mixed in, but they all were interested in joining one of the six sororities available on campus.  The recruitment events scheduled for today and the next two days gave the PNMs a chance to visit all the houses, narrow down their choices, and eventually (and hopefully) get a bid for membership from the house they liked the best.  At the same time, each sorority was deciding which PNMs they thought would be the best fit for the house. The PNMs got to vote on the houses, and the houses voted on the PNMs.  Mutual selection, they called it.

Regina hung back at the end of the line, inching forward while maintaining her clapping and chanting.  She heard the instructions from their advisor clearly in her mind. _Stay shoulder to shoulder, make sure you keep smiling! Be loud but don’t yell so loudly you scare them.  We’re just trying to keep it peppy.  Most are freshman, many have no idea what’s going on and it can be scary.  DON’T look them up and down, even if you think their shoes are cute.  This is to get to know them, to see if they’re a fit for us and if we’re a fit for them. Not to see if they have style and money._

            The door shut as the last PNM entered the house.  Truth be told, she didn’t pay too much attention to the girls that just walked through the door.  She already knew all of their names, faces, hobbies, high-school GPA’s; while she was fascinated the year before to see the study slideshow on the girls come to life, it was now her junior year.  That fascination was still there, but as the new member educator in charge of teaching the eventual new pledges all about the sorority, she would get to know them well enough in time.  As it was Day 1 of rush, all the new member educators down sorority row would be giving speeches to the PNMs in the middle of each recruitment party.  Regina wasn’t in the rotation to speak with anyone one-on-one today.  She just had to look classy and give her speech at the appropriate time.

            As she waited for the ten-minute mark when she was to walk to the front of the room and command everyone’s attention, she thought to what she knew about the girls in this specific party.  A few of them stood out to her that she hoped would be invited back to the parties the next day. The first and most obvious choice was Belle French, a girl with two ZKO aunts but not quite a legacy herself. Perfect GPA through high school, treasurer of her student council, and started a reading/mentoring program with her local elementary school.  _She should pass through to Day 2 easily, as long as she chooses to come back to us._   She saw her chatting with Regina’s best friend and pledge sister, Kathryn Midas, over in the corner.  Judging by the easy smiles on both of their faces, it was going well. 

            She looked around the room and found her other two favorites, Ingrid Blum and Marian Reese, each engaged in what was hopefully meaningful conversation with their assigned ZKO members.

            “Regina! Psst Regina!” a harsh voice whispered in her ear.

            _Oh God, what have they done now?_   Regina looked over to the advisor and saw her two-minute signal to her speech. _Fix this now?  Or wait until after my speech…_ “What can I help you with, Ruby?” Regina pulled a panicked Ruby Lucas over to the corner.

            “I fucked up my rotation. I fucked it up bad. I totally skipped the girl I was supposed to relieve and I think she’s been talking to her PNM the entire party so far. That’s like, at least eight minutes of conversation with one person.”  Ruby’s face was flushed and Regina swore she could see her hands shaking.

            “And who were you supposed to relieve?”

            “Mary Margaret. She’s talking to that new girl.”

            Regina put a calming hand on Ruby’s shoulder.  “Ruby, take a deep breath.  Everyone messes up a rotation now and then, especially during your sophomore year. It’s your first rush on this side. When you were going through, did you have any idea that there was a rotation in your parties?  That we planned who you were supposed to talk to and at what specific times?

            “… no. But that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t!”

            Regina gave a reassuring smile. “You said Mary Margaret has been stuck with the new girl; she’s the one who turned in her recruitment registration the last minute, right?  If she was any kind of legacy, had any idea about the sorority system, we can assume she would have turned in her registration the first day it was available.”

            “I guess, but-“

            “Look at it this way. She signed up last-minute. That tells me she was on the fence, maybe not even considering rushing at all until a friend talked her into it. Maybe it was a dare. The point is, this girl probably isn’t expecting much out of this experience at all.  She likely has no knowledge of what this should be like; therefore, she’ll not see anything amiss.  All you need to do is-“

            Just then, the recruitment advisor walked up to Regina and gently put her hand on Regina’s shoulder. That meant it was time for the speech. With the military precision of the timetables they had to follow in these parties, there was no time to instruct Ruby on her next steps.  She gave a pointed look to Ruby, and then looked toward the advisor to indicate that Ruby should get her instructions from the advisor while Regina gives her speech. Regina then put on that practiced smile and carried herself up to the fireplace at the front of the room with as much class and poise as she could muster.

            She stood silently, waiting with that smile.  All the ZKO members were trained to casually but swiftly bring their conversations to a close and point the potential new members’ attentions toward the front of the room when they saw Regina standing up there.  Regina made it a point to make eye contact with each and every PNM she could before she began, to make them feel welcome but mostly to make sure they were listening.  She had exactly eleven seconds on the schedule to do so.

            She started in the back, making eye contact with Belle, then Jessica, Alex, Ingrid… on and on, passing over a few who looked familiar but she couldn’t quite place their names. _Well, with 127 girls going through rush this year, I can forgive myself for forgetting a few.  That’s just about everyone… oh._

            Regina’s eyes stopped scanning the room when they met eyes of the most beautiful shade of green. Intelligent eyes, too. She stopped thinking, stopped breathing, and just… stared.  The girl that those green eyes belonged to raised a curious eyebrow, then flushed and looked away. Regina heard a throat clear off to her side that snapped her out of her trance.

            “Hello, ladies, and welcome to the Epsilon Alpha chapter of the Zeta Kappa Omicron sorority. We’re so glad that you’ve chosen to go through recruitment, where you’ll make lifelong friends, meet your study partners, party buddies, and may even your bridesmaids. Look around you. Some of the women you see in here today might one day be your sisters…”  Regina was thankful for the weeks she spent preparing this speech, and let her mouth deliver it on autopilot while her attention wandered to that new girl with the green eyes…

            Regina wrapped up her speech without problem or concern.  As she stepped away from the front of the room, she felt a hand grab her wrist from the couch beside her.

            “Regina! There’s someone I would like you to meet.  Emma, this is Regina. Regina, didn’t you spend some time in Boston this past spring break?”  Regina nodded dumbly, caught off-guard.  _I guess Mary Margaret didn’t want to wait for them to figure out how to fix the rotation._ “Well, Emma was just telling me she grew up in Boston!”

            “Ahh, just the last year or so, actually,” Emma mumbled.  Regina noted that the green-eyed girl – _Emma_ – kept her eyes down as she spoke.  _Something is clearly wrong… But what? Maybe Emma could tell something was wrong with the rotation?  Surely Mary Margaret kept the presence of mind to not let her know something was wrong. I’ll just go with it._

“Well, Emma, a year is certainly longer than my week I spent there.  Maybe I was able to visit some places you liked to visit? We certainly could have bumped into each other!” _No, we definitely didn’t bump into each other.  I would have remembered her._ “Thanks, Mary Margaret,” Regina said, nodding her head in the traditional rotation dismissal.

            “It was so nice to get to talk to you, Emma!”  Mary Margaret said jovially as she set her hand on Emma’s knee, then got up to undoubtedly drag Ruby into the kitchen to strategize how to fix their rotation. _I’ve got to talk Mary Margaret about reading people better. Emma definitely doesn’t look the touchy-feely type.  Okay here we go, Regina. Hold it together. Game face._

“So, Emma, Boston? It certainly was chilly when I visited, but beautiful nonetheless.  You said you were there for the last year, did someone in your family get a new job there?”

            “No, I… uh, yeah. New job.”

            _Okay… Poor question, Mills, go for open-ended._ “What were your favorite places to visit?”

            “Definitely the library. It was within walking distance of our apartment and I absolutely love to read.  And it was free.” 

            “Oh, wonderful! What kind of books?”

            “Well, the last one I read before moving here for school was _Dune_. It’s a pretty intense sci-fi so I doubt you would have-“

            “I LOVE _Dune_!” Regina exclaimed, maybe a little too loudly judging by the glances in their direction.  _Okay, gorgeous eyes and smart and cool. Calm yourself, Mills._

“Look, Regina,” Emma said with a sigh, leaning back into the couch.  “I appreciate what you’re trying to do here and all, but I can tell that neither you nor anyone else in your sorority has ever read a book like that. I’m sure you can tell this isn’t really my thing, so you can just take up the rest of the time you have to talk to me with telling me about how great your sisterhood is and how much money you give to museums and stuff like that.”

            Regina sank back into the couch a little, shocked.  _Well, that’s a new one._ “First of all, I have a blue-eyed Siamese back home named Stilgar, so yes, I have read the book.  Although, now that you mention it I do believe I may be the only one here who has. Second, I do love the arts but that’s not what we raise money for.  Our philanthropy is Treehouse, an advocacy organization for children in the foster care system.”  Regina paused, taking a deep breath.  “It seems like maybe you have some doubts about sorority life.  Am I off-base in this?”

            Emma shrugged, opened her mouth, shut it again.  She awkwardly took a sip from her ZKO water bottle each PNM received after walking in the door. Another pause. “Foster care system?”

            _Here we go.  Maybe this is something we can talk about without hostility._ “Yes. We hold three fundraising events over the course of the year.  Each April, we invite some local children in the system over to the house for a big cookout and party.  We get all the food donated, spend some time with the kids, and send them off with a care package with some books, snacks, pencil and paper, other necessities that sometimes get overlooked.  Often we find that people remember to donate toys but sometimes these children end up in homes where their more basic needs are forgotten or intentionally ignored. We support Treehouse in striving to give these kids an equal opportunity to succeed.  A few of us volunteer as mentors to kids throughout the year so it isn’t just a one-and-done kind of thing.”

            “I’m – I was, was a foster kid,” Emma whispered.  “That’s cool that you guys do that.  I kinda wish I had found something like that growing up.”

“Is that why you spent a year in Boston?”  Emma nodded, casting her eyes away once more.  “Well I’m certainly sorry it got brought up, if it’s a sore subject for you at all…” Emma still looked vaguely uncomfortable. “I’m not sure what your motivations were in signing up for recruitment.  I can tell you that I remember vividly when I went through rush two years ago. So many faces, names to remember, people talking incessantly even though…” Regina looks around, leans in, and whispers: “I’m actually an introvert.”  _Good, that got a little smile out of her._ “No really, I am! And God, I hated the yelling, clapping, all the noise, it just put me out of my element.  It still kind of does.”

            “But you just gave a speech in front of the whole room!”

            “My mother taught me public speaking skills from a… from a very young age.  It was quite important to her.  My trick is to just pick out one thing and focus on it.  It keeps me from getting overwhelmed.”

            “God, is that why you were staring at me the entire time?  I’m sorry, but that was just fucking awkward.”  Emma laughed then promptly clamped her lips together, embarrassed.

            “I am so, so sorry about that, but I guess you’re right!  I didn’t realize I was doing it.  Again, I’m sorry.” _Oh, she noticed.  She noticed and I’ve made a fool of myself.  I’m glad she thinks it was just because I was nervous._

“That makes me feel a little better.  I really thought you were, ya know, judging me or something for my clothes or hair or, well, typical sorority stuff.”

            “Definitely not, you’re beautiful.”  _Oh shit._  “Well not that, I mean, you look beautiful, I-“

            “Zee! Kay!  Oh!  The only place to go! Gold and white with an owl and kite!”

            Regina realized that was her cue to lead Emma to the door and say goodbye.  _Is it time already? Perfect timing, I just made a fool of myself with no chance to explain._ “Sorry, that’s our cue. I most definitely wasn’t judging you, though.  Thanks for opening up with me about things.”

            “Well, I guess you were pretty easy to talk to.  And thank you for the whole not-judging thing.  I guess I’m kinda nervous about all of this, like you said.”

            “Fear is the mind-killer, Emma,” Regina said with a wink.

            “ _Dune_! Okay, okay, you’ve read it. I… I hope I can talk to you again tomorrow.”

            “As do I.” _Shit, Regina!  No verbal bids! Gotta let it slide. Just hope she gets asked back and it won’t be a problem._

Regina stood, followed by Emma, and they both walked the crowded path to the doorway, surrounded by chanting and clapping girls.  Regina thought she saw Emma roll her eyes and grinned.  _Oh, Emma._ “Emma!” Regina yelled in a panic as Emma got just one foot out the door.  Emma slightly jumped and whirled around.  “Your, uh, water bottle. Can’t take it outside. Panhellenic rules.”

            Emma definitely rolled her eyes this time and held the water bottle out to Regina.  As Regina took it, her fingers brushed Emma’s. Regina froze for a moment as she held the water bottle.  By the time she looked up again, the door was closing and Emma was lost in a sea of girls moving on to their next house.  _Mills.  Get. It.  Together._


End file.
